History Repeats, But Smarter: How a 1990s Tailings Project De-Risks Queensland's Critical Mineral Future
What if I told you that one of the most exciting "new" opportunities in mining was already a commercial success before the year 2000?
Many in the Bowen Basin might remember the Coal Recoveries operation at Moura Mine. This wasn't a small trial or an R&D project. It was a large-scale, profitable commercial contract to dredge a legacy tailings pit (the Moura 2C pit) and reprocess the material.
Their business model was simple and brilliant: recover the valuable fine coal lost in earlier operations.
They proved, at industrial scale, that "mining our waste" was not just a theory—it was a viable business.
But they only told the first chapter of the story.
💡 The Precedent: A Proven Commercial Model
The Moura operation wasn't just a piece of history; it was a robust commercial precedent. It proved two things that are critical to our work today:
The Feedstock is Valuable: The residual coal in the tailings was of a high enough quality and volume to justify a major recovery operation. Our own recent testwork on legacy dams confirms this, showing potential yields of 35-85%.
The Extraction Method Works: The project used a cutter-suction dredge and successfully pumped the slurry 2.5 kilometres to a processing plant. This de-risks the entire front-end of any modern project. The "how-to" for extraction is established.
Their thinking, however, was linear: recover the coal, and dump the rest of the "waste" back in a hole.
This is where the real opportunity was missed.
🔄 The Pivot: From Linear Recovery to a Circular Economy
That linear model overlooked 90% of the value. The "waste" they discarded is today's strategic reserve.
This is the entire premise of Project Phoenix and the new RCOE Flexi-Lab in Mackay. We are not repeating the Moura model; we are completing it.
Our philosophy is "Full Value Realisation". We start where they left off.
The Flexi-Lab is a state-of-the-art, modular pilot plant designed to take that same dredged slurry and apply 21st-century processing to the entire stream. We will recover the coal, just as they did, but we'll then process the "waste of the waste."
🔋 The Real Prize: Critical Minerals & New Industries
The Moura project was about a single commodity. Our new approach, anchored by the Flexi-Lab, is designed to catalyse an entire industrial ecosystem.
After we recover the high-grade coal fines, the real work begins. That remaining tailings stream is a rich, pre-processed feedstock for a suite of high-value products:
High-Purity Silica: The primary feedstock for solar panels and semiconductors.
Aluminosilicates (Clays): The key ingredient for manufacturing "green cement" (Supplementary Cementitious Materials), which can slash emissions in the construction industry.
Critical Minerals: The very elements our nation has identified as vital for our sovereign capability—Rare Earth Elements (REEs), Vanadium, and Cobalt—used in batteries, wind turbines, and defence technology.
Suddenly, one legacy tailings dam is no longer a rehabilitation liability. It's a diversified, domestic source of four or five essential, high-value products.
🚀 The Opportunity is De-Risked
The Coal Recoveries operation gave us the gift of a 30-year-old case study. It proved the commercial and technical viability of the most challenging first step: extraction.
We no longer have to ask, "Can we profitably access these tailings?" We know we can.
The question now is: "How quickly can we build the high-tech facilities to unlock the full value?"
At the Resources Centre of Excellence, our Flexi-Lab is the answer. It's the critical link between a proven past and a highly profitable, circular future.
This is a massive opportunity for miners, investors, and technology partners. The feedstock is validated, the extraction is proven, and the pilot facility to de-risk the new value-added pathways is here.
Let's get to work.